


Time in a bottle (if words could make wishes come true)

by DWT



Category: League of Legends
Genre: M/M, Pulsefire AU, Set immediately before Ezreal pop ups (again) in Ekko's hideout, Short Drabble, Yichao (the author) said they were around the same age in this au so its free real state
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:14:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24886657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DWT/pseuds/DWT
Summary: "It's been four seconds".It's strange, to know so many aspects of a person, and yet know so little.Ezreal is the roughly the same in every timeline, but he can never truly expect him to know the same.Maybe this Ezreal has only met him once.Maybe this Ezreal knows about stories he hasn't lived yet.Maybe the way this Ezreal looks at him isn't entirely inside his head.There's something constant, though. No matter how many universes apart their origins are.Ezreal is always,always,ready to leave.
Relationships: Ekko/Ezreal (League of Legends)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 43





	Time in a bottle (if words could make wishes come true)

The portal opened, and they were both unceremoniously thrown onto the ground of Ekko’s hideout by the tides of time. Like two castaways spit by the sea into a miraculous island, touching land felt like a blessing to the runaways. It meant they were safe, it meant they had made it. No more running away from remembrancers or other very angry, very much armed people in the multiverse.

They both took a moment to fight against the pull of gravity keeping them glued to the floor and bring themselves up by their elbows and aching muscles, enough to look at each other in all their tired, scuffed and sweaty glory. Ezreal’s hair was a mess, blond strands falling over his eyes and dirtied up with blood and dirt that wasn’t even from this timeline. The soft light of the core in his chest shone on his face, illuminating his already blinding grin and making the cerulean of his eyes seem all the more ethereal. Ekko knew he probably wasn’t looking any better, why, with all the trouble they had gone through to get that cube it was a miracle they came back in one piece. But that was part of their thing, wasn’t it? Impossible comebacks, improbable victories and miracles were the subject of the day whenever the two of them joined forces. At first, the blond’s impulsivity was a pain in the ass for Ekko’s more carefully planning mind. Ezreal thinking on his feet and ‘creativity’ made it that much harder to keep timelines in check and memorize patterns when he chronobreak’d, but he couldn’t just tell him “hey, do the same thing you did last timeline”, that just wasn’t how time travelling worked! However, given enough time and escapades, the two chronofugitives worked like a well-oiled machine. It was as if their minds were in sync, Ezreal always knew what Ekko meant with a simple nod or an explication, or if he didn’t, his improv was enough that Ekko could work with it. Most of the times.

It was still messy, rough around the edges, and they still fought tooth and nail for every victory. Ekko wouldn’t have it any other way, though.

Ezreal’s laugh pulls him out of his thoughts and back into reality. He doesn’t know how long he’s been staring at him, but if he noticed, Ezreal has no intention of teasing him for it. Sure, he’s laughing, but Ekko has known the other long enough to tell when the blond’s making fun of him. This laughter is one that starts low and soft, as a simple grin or smirk that quickly overtakes over his body as he throws his head back and lets the guffaws trek through his body. It’s a contagious laugh that soon spreads to Ekko, forcing him to grasp at his stomach in an effort to quell the strain of his muscles. It’s euphoria, an ‘I can’t believe we actually made it’ laugh, the pure joy of being alive after being so close to biting it.

Its short lived, sadly.

Soon enough, Ezreal began to calm down and stand up, wiping the tears that made it out with the back of his hand before he patted the dust off his suit. Ekko was quick to follow, though he chose to make sure his Mohawk was okay rather than his clothes, which he knew for a fact were in rough shape. Brown eyes met sky blue already waiting for them, and despite being painfully aware of the seconds that pass (comes with the whole time fugitive thing), he swore he could feel time slow to a crawl as those clear pools stared him down. The atmosphere around them changed, the air filled with implications, of words left unsaid but that they both infer. It felt like defiance to hold his stare, if only because he knows what happens next, what this look meant. Ekko wetted his lips.

“Well,” Ezreal began, and Ekko is already dreading every second that comes after. He braced himself for the inevitable, because he knows he can’t stop it. He always tries not to take it personally. Some things are what they call “conserved” among timelines: the more things change, the more they stay the same. No matter what universe, Ezreal is always with one foot out the door, always planning the next trip before touching base. Ekko can’t hold that against him, not when it’s his nature. He can’t help but raise an eyebrow though; not holding it against him doesn’t mean he is not going to call out Ezreal’s escapism when he does so little to conceal it. “I guess this is it”.

He said it so casually, already checking his suit’s power levels on his cannon arm and avoiding his glare. Ekko can see the charts and percentages through the transparent hologram projected from the screen. He’s all set to go, P.E.A.R.L. already gathering resources for another chronojump. Ekko felt the bile churning in his stomach and coming up his mouth, but he didn’t let the bitterness show. “I guess it is,” He said simply, nonchalant. From Ezreal’s hand cannon shot up a crystal clear portal to somewhere in the universe, somewhere in the timeline. Any when and where that is not there. Ekko knew better than to argue or read between the lines, but it feels bitter all the same the more goodbyes they stack on.

Ezreal shifted to face towards the portal, giving his back to him and only looking back at him over his shoulder. It’s like he’s avoiding him, somehow. “Good bye forever,” It was like a moment pulled straight out of a bad movie, full of clichés and painfully scripted interactions, but it was their reality, or at least the one Ezreal created. Ekko didn’t move from where he stood, nothing would change if he did. He remains there, unaffected and impervious to the storm of Ezreal’s departure like a lighthouse watching a ship disappear into the raging sea. He knews ‘forever’ doesn’t always mean forever, but that stands to be corrected until the next time that they see each other; which could be in a decade for him and minutes for Ezreal, there’s no way to tell.

“It’s been fun, but now we’ll never see each other again, which is probably for the best, given everything”. Ezreal’s tone was light, he even shook his head as if he made a joke so dumb even he recognized it. A poor attempt at lightening the heavy mood that had set between them.

Ekko wanted to ask him what does ‘everything’ mean. They come and go like sinusoidal waves meeting at the vertex and then pulling away again, he wanted to ask what makes him so hesitant to risk it, but he stayed silent. It’s safer to keep track of their anomalies and paradoxes if they travel alone, it’s easier to trick remembrancers into dead ends if they work as units and not as groups. Teaming up for punctual missions was fine, if they didn’t make it a habit. He wanted to know if he’d kissed this Ezreal yet, if he had traced the inside of his still human wrist with his thumb all the way up to his shoulder, following the arc of his collarbone and column of his neck into the boyish curve of his chin and placed it in the dip between his lips. He wanted to know if he’d whipped that stupid grin off his face with a desperate kiss minutes before their closest escape yet, back when they didn’t think they’d make it. He’d been expecting to be pushed away, only to have Ezreal pull him in by the neck and lock their lips past the simple impulsive touch Ekko started, pull away with a renewed spark on his eyes and tell him they aren’t done for yet. A million different realities diverge from this very moment, separated by the flap of a butterfly’s wing to the way his weight rests on his heels instead of his toes. Where could they go from here? It wasn’t his decision to take. It didn’t feel like Ezreal was making a fair one, either.

Still, Ekko remained silent. He knew when to question Ezreal’s theatrics and when to take it in stride.

He raised two fingers up to his temple, and saluted Ezreal without a word. The other nodded, stepping into the portal and disappearing through the holes in the fabric of time as if he’d never been a stitch in this timeline, the only thing left as proof of his passing was the irregular heartbeat in Ekko’s chest and the faint smoke left by the closing portal.

Ekko sighed, not wasting a second to turn back and setting their bounty on the table. They went through so much trouble just to get it, and now he got to have all the fun of disassembling it and working it together again—like a pen or a clock when he was a kid. Only more dangerous and difficult to get but, the principle was the same. He was simply staring at the exterior for the moment, analizing what details were for aesthetic’s sake and what served a purpose, trying to use its soft cobalt hue to push the memory of other shining blue things into the very back of his mind.

Suddenly, an earthquake. The ground doesn’t move, but he swore he felt the distance between his atoms decrease and expand as if a tidal wave displaced the space time continuum itself. Then, the sound of feet landing on metal, around ten meters away from him. A ragged breathing he didn’t know yet but could recognize with his eyes closed, the fizzling of electricity without insulation, this _presence_ he knew from thought alone.

A smirk drew itself on his lips. It’s not like he’s been counting the seconds, but when something big happens it’s second nature for him to time it. _4 seconds, 39 fractions._

_So much for his cool guy exit._


End file.
